The Democratic Alliance (DA) has asked the Premier, Dr Zamani Saul, to urgently put together a support team to assist the Northern Cape Department of Health to keep its head above water.
The DA has received a growing number of health-related complaints from across the province and it is increasingly clear that the challenges relating to dysfunctional district health offices are overwhelming MEC Maruping Lekwene and acting HOD Riaan Strydom, who on their own are not able to halt the regression of health services.
The district of Namaqualand is particularly problematic.
Promises by the department to appoint more nurses and doctors don’t seem to have materialized. In Calvinia there are serious concerns regarding staff shortages. At the hospital, five nurses are at home due to having contracted Covid-19. There are no extra nurses to assist. EPWP workers have been tasked with checking patients’ blood pressure and patients are put onto medication according to these readings.
At the Port Nolloth Community Health Centre, cleaners and caterers who are employed by a third party, and who are working at the facility, have been on strike for the past couple of days because of salary grievances and failed promises by the department to absorb them (see pics here, here and here). In Calvina, where one cleaner has been employed in this way for the past 10 years, there is dissatisfaction about the same issues, making the possibility of spill-over strikes likely.
In Calvinia and Fraserburg, and a number of other facilities, the phones are no longer working. Health staff use their own phones to make work related calls, including calling for ambulances. In cases where staff are striking, patients have to make use of their own personal cellphones to contact family members to bring them food and come and care for them.
At the Springbok hospital, certain medicines are out of stock. This includes essential pills for prostate cancer suffers.
In greater Namaqualand, ambulance and patient transport challenges persist. Transport for very sick patients, who are due to be transferred to the Robert Sobukwe Hospital in Kimberley for cancer treatment and operations, gets cancelled at the last minute. Patients have to wait for another three or four months for medical assistance, if they live that long.
At the De Aar hospital in Pixley ka Seme, there are still challenges with water, especially hot water. This is not the only facility struggling with water problems.
The cry of the poorest of the poor is that they are not considered important enough by government to receive the necessary treatment and care, as commitments by the premier to look after them have become empty and actionless promises.
The DA will keep on fighting for all who are dependent on state health care, not just when it’s time for their vote.
*PRESS READ
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